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Sir Fairfax Moresby GCB (1786 – 21 January, 1877), born in Calcutta, India, was an English admiral of the Fleet.
He was the eldest son of Fairfax Moresby, Lieut. Colonel of the 2nd Staffordshire Militia and Colonel Commandant of the Lichfield Volunteer Yeomanry, who had been posted to India where he married Mary Rotten in October 1784.
Sir Fairfax Moresby entered the Navy as an AB in 1799. He became a midshipman on the ''Amazon'' in 1803, and was promoted to master's mate in 1805, lieutenant in 1806, commander in 1811 and captain in 1814.
On 6 August 1814 he married Eliza Louisa Williams (1796–1874) of Bakewell, Derbyshire, with whom he had five children:
Mary Moresby (1824–1908), married Robert Aslack White
Matthew Fortesque Moresby (1827–1919), was secretary to his father until he moved to Sydney, New South Wales where he became a well known painter and photographer.
In 1815, Moresby was created a CB. He was senior officer at Mauritius in 1821, with orders to suppress the slave trade, and concluded a treaty with the imam of Muscat restricting the scope of local slave trading and conferring on English warships the right of searching and seizing local vessels.
Promoted rear admiral in 1849, he was commander-in-chief of the Pacific station 1850–1853, based at Valparaiso, Chile, with the flagship HMS ''Portland''. He took an interest in Pitcairn Island at this time and planned the emigration of the islanders to Norfolk Island which took place in 1856.
He was promoted vice-admiral in that year, and was made KCB in 1855. Promoted admiral in 1862, he was made a GCB in 1865 and admiral of the Fleet in 1870. Moresby died in 1877.
Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea and Moresby Island in British Columbia, Canada are named after him.
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